


Opletka

by sexylibrarian1



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Implied torture (light), Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexylibrarian1/pseuds/sexylibrarian1
Summary: The year is 1951. Julia Elisabeth Hunter Barnes is a precocious, friendly child who just turned six. Her mother makes sure that all of her legal documents, save a private copy of the birth certificate, show only her maiden name. Julia knows only that her father died in World War Two, and that her mother knew Captain America. Sometimes she wonders if her father was Captain America, and so, after a solid month of pleading and prodding, she gets her mother to agree to take them to the newly finished Smithsonian exhibit on Steve Rogers. There’s not much in it yet, and her mother is reluctant to take the trip, but Peggy Carter, given the honorary title of Aunt Peg, is more than happy to take them both up. She wants to view it as a civilian, having had to open the exhibit, and has not yet been given time to simply mourn. So they go…One shot





	

“Mama, look. Look at that.” Julia pointed to the display of mannequins, arranged in front of a painting, and stared directly at Captain America. They’ve already been through most of the exhibit, and Peggy has telltale runnels down her cheeks, which she has expertly disguised with sunglasses and a rather patriotic blue hat. Julia has been fixated on Steve Rogers for a month now, and even though her current dream has been fulfilled, her mother worried that this was not the end of the obsession.  
Peggy leaned down and touched Julia’s shoulder, no doubt telling her a story about Steve getting into some sort of trouble, and Julia’s mother knew it was time for her to slip away. Around the corner is the bloody Howling Commandos wall, and she can’t handle it. She brushed Peggy’s arm, pointed toward the public restroom, and headed that way without waiting for a nod.   
“…And he jumped on it!” Peggy exclaimed, and Julia squealed with delight. “Now, Julia, I am not in any way advocating jumping on grenades, but it was rather brave.” She let Julia ogle the display for a minute more, and then took the child’s hand again. “Shall we move on?”  
Julia took one last longing look at the mannequin wearing Captain America’s uniform, and then followed placidly in Aunt Peg’s wake. Peggy’s mouth twitched; no doubt Julia thought her father was the famous one, the one who had all the glory, and it looked as though her mother was perfectly fine with keeping it that way.   
Peggy didn’t blame her in the slightest.  
They rounded the corner and were met with a giant picture of James Buchanan Barnes. It was a close-up of his face, and Julia blinked at it, touched by a feeling that she would not understand for many, many more years—familiarity. “He looks sad,” she said a little uncomfortably, and tugged on her ponytail. “Who is he?”  
“That was Captain America’s best friend,” Peggy answered, just as moved by the picture as Julia was. She had not been all the way through the exhibit, and the picture was new to her. The date on the bottom of the informational plaque next to it said that it had been taken in early February of 1944—just after he had left his wife to go on the mission that had killed him. “His name was Bucky.”  
“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Julia repeated, trying out the name. “That’s silly.”  
“It was St—Captain America’s nickname for him.”  
“He knew Captain America?”   
“Yes, he did. They were best friends.”  
Julia’s eyes brightened and she suddenly showed a good deal more interest in the man named James Buchanan Barnes. As she went around looking at all of the pictures and videos (Howard had developed a handy machine that kept them going on a continual loop so some poor fool didn’t have to constantly change reels), Peggy looked toward the restroom where Bucky’s wife had gone.   
Abruptly, her watch beeped, and she glanced irritably down at it. The numbers were at 8 and 3 (thank God, not 12 and 12), meaning that there was an issue of somewhat monumental proportions happening somewhere down near New Jersey. If it had been at 12 and 11, it would have been an issue here in Washington, D.C., and they would likely be dead. She sighed, looked at the watch again, and led Julia to a bench in the corner. “I have to go ring a friend,” she said, keeping her face and voice calm. “I’m leaving you right here, your mum is in the loo over there, and neither of us want you getting up and moving from this bench. Is that quite clear?”  
“Yes, Aunt Peg.”  
“I’ll be five minutes. You stay right here.”  
“Yes, Aunt Peg.”  
“Good girl. Don’t move.” Peggy rose and made her way through the exhibit, her heels clicking purposefully and loudly on the wooden floor, startling the complete quiet.   
Julia swung her legs a few times, wondering if she could swing them hard enough to slip a shoe and watch it go flying through the air, but decided her mother wouldn’t like that very much, and looked back toward the huge picture of the man named Bucky.  
A man slipped out of the corner, and Julia jumped. How long had he been standing in the shadows?   
“Hello,” she ventured. “You can sit here if you want.”  
His head jerked to her, and Julia was struck immediately by an urge to get up and run. Don’t do that, Aunt Peggy said to stay, Mommy’s right over there, she’s right over there, Moooommmyyyy—  
He was huge, bigger than Howard, bigger than maybe Captain America had been. He was bearded, scruffy, like maybe he hadn’t taken a shower in a few days, or maybe even a week. Julia would never have gotten away with that. His clothes were dirty, and his pants were even torn open in one spot. She wouldn’t have gotten away with that, either. Her mother only let her wear pants at home, and her clothes were never dirty. She blinked at his hands, bunched into fists, and saw that he was still wearing his gloves. It was cold in here, but not that cold. In fact, she was starting to get a little bit hot, and tugged her ponytail again.   
His eyes swept across her, taking her in, and she gulped. His movements were jerky, almost stunted, and he reminded her of the picture of the panther that was in one of her books; he looked like he might want to pounce on her and eat her.   
“You have really long hair,” she blurted. It was, in fact, brushing his shoulders, and was the longest hair she’d ever seen on a man. She felt obliged to point this out. “Mommy says I’m not supposed to have my hair down so I don’t chew on it.”  
He remained utterly silent and still, and Julia gnawed on her lip for a second, before yanking her own hair tie out. “Do you want this one? You can have it, I’ve got a lot of them because I lose them all the time.” She waited. “Aunt Peggy says I can’t get off this bench.”  
The man moved toward her, slowly, as if it was difficult for him to walk, and stopped about a foot from her, extending his hand and letting Julia drop the tie into his… left… palm. She still had trouble telling her left apart from her right sometimes.  
“Aren’t you going to put it in your hair?”  
He watched her, still tense, still silent, and Julia realized: “You don’t know how to wear it, do you?”  
His head shook, first one way, then the other. It was the first reaction she’d gotten from him, and Julia broke out into a crooked, toothy grin. “I’ll braid your hair for you! Mommy just taught me how to braid. I really like it.”  
In one fluid motion, he turned his back to her and knelt, now close enough to her so that she would not have to vacate the bench. Julia scooted eagerly forward and took his hair into her hands, dividing it into three parts and sliding each part easily into the beginnings of a braid. “Mommy and Aunt Peggy brought me here to see the new Captain America exhibit. I really like it. Do you like it?” No answer. “I really wanted to come see Captain America because Mommy said she knew him before he died in the war.”   
The man startled so violently that his hair slipped right from Julia’s fingers. “Did I pull too hard? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Anyway, Mommy said she would bring me here and I think Captain America might be my daddy, but Mommy hasn’t said anything yet. My daddy died in the war. Mommy misses him a lot. I think maybe that’s why she didn’t want to come here.” She tied off the braid and smiled. “There, all done. I hope you don’t mind a pink flower, ‘cause that’s what the hair tie had on it. You look pretty now, though.”  
He turned to face her, and she blinked. His eyes had the same sad look that the man called Bucky had in the picture. That… and something else. Like he was lost.   
“What happened to your neck?” She pointed out the raw, red scarring that seemed to go all the way around, peeking out from behind his upturned collar. “Does it hurt? …Mommy says kisses make boo boos go away. She always kisses mine. Do you want a kiss?”  
His eyes widened slightly. Julia kissed her own fingers, loudly, and then reached out and touched the scar, adding another smacking sound as she did so. The man’s face contorted briefly at her touch; his brow furrowed, his bottom lip shook, and his mouth curled into what looked like a snarl. Julia was suddenly worried that she had hurt him and lifted her hand to take the kiss back, but he put a hand over the spot on his neck as if to protect it.   
Abruptly, he lifted himself gracefully to his feet, watching her intently, and then touched one finger to his mouth. Julia stared, and then mimicked the motion, as if in a trance.  
“Julia?” She turned and saw Aunt Peggy coming back.  
In those few seconds, the strange man had disappeared.   
“Julia?” That was her mother. “Julia, where on earth is your hair tie?”  
“…I don’t remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> Opletka is Russian for "braid", according to three different online translators.


End file.
